‘UC RUSAL’s Severouralsk bauxite mine (SUBR) was supposed to switch to a four-day working week early in February 2009; however, on second thought, the enterprise’s management decided to wait, since it turned out that the public prosecution authorities had been rather alarmed by this news. In fact, the order to this extent really was not formalized in accordance with all the existing regulations. For one, the employer failed to inform the workers about the change in their working conditions two months in advance (as the rules state). This is why, as far as I know, the prosecution authorities are planning to suggest that SUBR’s management should cancel their order regarding the introduction of a four-day week,’ Valeriy Zolotarev (the head of UC RUSAL’s SUBR independent trade union) said to an UrBC reporter.

‘Nevertheless, the cancellation or the order is not going to solve the problem: after all, people won’t get paid more for working five days a week, he added